The biggest news coming from the recent Dell World Conference is that the company will stop producing smartphones henceforth in the global markets. After the major debacles with phones like Dell Aero and Dell Venue, this reflects the ultimate realization by Dell that the sector has grown quite challenging and that it would be a loss making endeavour even if it tries to pump in more money for innovation of its products. The focus from now on is to produce Windows 8 based tablets, while ditching Android for the time being.
While talking to Forbes on this matter, Jeff Clarke – the Head of Consumer business at Dell said, “It’s a content play with Android. Amazon is selling books and Google is making it up with search. So far we couldn’t find a way to build a business on Android”.
Though this may be sad for consumers, it feels like a sound decision from a business perspective because tablets and such similar computing devices are where Dell has been quite competitive and has a good chance at capturing the market. But, even the PC sales have been falling this year. So even if Dell promises that PC’s aren’t dead yet, the continuous decline of shipments for the company, which has been more than 10 percent, is going to give it a hard time competing with others. Commenting on its future plans ahead, Clarke said,“We’re going to provide smartphone solutions, we’re going to be the preferred BYOD provider of solutions in the marketplace.”
The overall strategy for the company feels unpredictable, making just one thing clear and it’s the fact that a flurry of Windows based Dell tablets is soon to be expected. The current lineup of devices like XPS 12, XPS 10 and Latitude 10 is going to get a boot up, it seems.
